In an effort to increase the performance abilities of server-supplied storage systems to deliver information, a number of different advances have been made in recent years. For instance, the configuration of multiple drives, or disk arrays, has been utilized to leverage the scale of economy with redundant information and specialized controls. One type of disk array controller in common use among Direct Attached Storage (DAS) server systems is a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) controller. This piece of hardware allows a computer to take several disk drives and make them appear as a single data source. Using this technology, a workstation or server can read or write data according to stripes across the multiple drives with the help of the controller.
Other advances have centered on operational speed of computing devices or the storage system itself. Storage improvements can be in the medium itself, in the form of internal drive algorithms used, or application enhancements. As an example, non-volatile memory or Flash memory used in a solid-state drive (SSD) is much faster than is a comparably sized conventional magnetic, rotating hard disk drive (HDD). While also requiring less power than a conventional HDD, several drawbacks exist with Flash-based technology. These include higher prices, limited capacity, and endurance issues with regard to the number of write operations that can occur. As a result, in larger-scale computing environments, increased performance has to be weighed against cost-effectiveness to create a balance in technology choices.